Isn’t it funny when people shoot off their mouths for their right to freedom of speech, then do all they can to deny their opposition that same right?
This is what happened at Tel Aviv University last week when Alan Dershowitz accepted an honorary doctorate from the university.
Dershowitz used his freedom of speech to take to task left-leaning professors who make it their life to criticize -- no, worse -- defame Israel and her government. He specifically mentioned Shlomo Sands and Anat Matar.
These professors, who routinely take advantage of the freedoms awarded them by the democratic state in which they live, immediately tried to silence Dershowitz by calling him an inciter. If this is not the pot calling the kettle black, then I don’t know what is.
Shlomo Sands is the author of a book (The Invention of The Jewish People) that denounces the Jewish people, denounces their right to a state and is as close to a twenty-first century Protocols of The Elders of Zion as you can get. When Anat Matar isn’t teaching, she is gallivanting around Europe at pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protests calling her country an apartheid state and demanding an economic boycott of Israel.
This is incitement against the people of Israel and the State.
Why should these professors have the right to slander Israel, make up their own mythos of the Jewish people and incite against the Jewish Nation? Shlomo Sands, Anat Matar and others can do all of this, but Prof. Dershowitz can’t demand that these radical inciters be held accountable for attempting to influence students who have paid tens of thousands of hard-earned Shekels to learn facts, not opinions?
What these professors unintentionally did in their attack on Alan Dershowitz is highlight and expose all that is wrong with the fanatical, anti-Israel left. They demand democracy and its freedoms for themselves and the side they align themselves with, while denying it to those who stand against their hatefulness. The last time I checked, that type of behavior is best suited for a dictatorship or theocracy rather than a democracy. This behavior also runs contrary to their own definition of freedom of speech.
The professors at Tel Aviv University who tried to muzzle Dershowitz’s call for honest and factual higher education reveal themselves as nothing more than the playground bully who finally has been hit back. Now they’re crying “foul” because they know Alan Dershowitz is right. They know he is right when he calls for a halt to their attempts to turn the minds of students with the near-seditious insertion of personal politics into their curricula.
These academics also happen to be hitting below the proverbial belt.
The militant left and its supporters in the media have done all they can to delegitimize Dershowitz, depicting him fallaciously as a radical conservative. This is, of course, far from the truth. Alan Dershowitz is a left-leaning liberal who was active in the civil rights movement and is an avid campaigner in the American pro-choice movement. Not exactly right-leaning or conservative.
When it comes to Israel, Dershowitz supports the two-state solution and is firmly in favor of removing Israeli settlements. Fortunately, he also firmly believes it’s possible to be intelligent, educated, reasoned, constructively critical AND a patriot.
However, as usual, these purported academics would rather go with their opinions than the facts.
This article, if it's supposed to be an article seems to be more of a diatribe. The author defends the indefensible. Alan Dershowitz seems to believe that any criticism of Israel is anti-semitic so he is hyper-critical of any legitimate criticism of the nation state of Israel. Shlomo Sand writes some real history of Israel & his history is referred to as myth.
ReplyDeleteWhat is this "militant left" that is being referred to? Who holds power in Israel? It's certainly not influenced by the so-called "militant left". Uri Avenery of Gush Shalom, who lives in Israel and criticizes Israeli politics would presumably also be attacked by the above writer and considered being of the "militant left". It seems that the writer of this piece lives with his own ideological bias and considers that bias to be reality. Sadly, this so-called reality rules the lives of many people these days.
Does Hugh think that joining an economic boycott of Israel is "legitimate criticism?" I think that anyone in a position of power (such as a professor) who chooses this method of "criticising" Israel is "militant."
ReplyDeleteDoes Hugh think that Shlomo Sand "writes some real history of Israel" because of "his own ideological bias and considers that bias to be reality?"
Hugh: we can hoist each other by our respective petards forever, but if we don't attempt to listen to the real gist of what each is saying, we'll only remain fractured and hostile. For instance, diatribe or not, I was writing about freedom of speech -- the only point you don't mention throughout your comment. Why is that?
Hugh's only valid comment/criticism is that I tend write in "diatribe" mode when I'm upset! As for "defending the indefensible," it's not "legitimate" to defend Alan Dershowitz, when the TAU letter-signers are basically asking the university authorities to muzzle him so that THEY can maintain their own freedom of expression?